Web Roundup: Water by Lily Shapiro

Before I began graduate school, I worked in water-related public health, and have continued to follow the news around water. This month, some stories (mostly) about water.

Trump signed an order last week to “expedite” the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, which jeopardizes the water source for the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, and for many others who drink water from the Missouri River. Opponents of the pipeline are not surprised, and are gearing up for a fight. Although most of Silicon Valley has come out against Trump (though perhaps in somewhat tepid terms), particularly in light of his recent executive order on immigration, Peter Thiel has been tapped to help Trump pick someone to lead the FDA, with the goal of decreasing its regulations around drug approval process. Vox goes into detail about why that’s a bad idea. (And, before we move away from the topic of Trump’s horrifying first week in office, if you haven’t read CultAnth’s interview with prof of anthropology and lawyer Darryl Li on the travel ban, I recommend it).

California has recently gotten some much-needed rain (and snow) this month. Researchers and farmers there are experimenting with methods, which include flooding fields during the winter, to use this rain to recharge the depleted groundwater aquifers. Also, check out this time lapse of the California drought from 2011-present. The storms also toppled an iconic, if controversial, “drive-through” Sequoia tree, one of the last still standing in a public park.

Meanwhile, the state of Tamil Nadu, in South India, is experiencing its worst monsoon in nearly 150 years, a crisis worsened by the demonetization on November 9 (in which the Rupees 500 and 1000 notes were declared invalid), resulting in the deaths of numerous farmers and recent agitations by farmer’s groups.

The views, opinions and positions expressed by these authors and blogs are theirs and do not necessarily represent that of the Bioethics Research Library and Kennedy Institute of Ethics or Georgetown University.